


Psychically Jinxed

by chinesebakery



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: 0-8-4s, Awkward Crush, Comedy, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, March Madness Fic Tournament, Mind Reading, Season/Series 01, prompt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-08
Updated: 2016-04-12
Packaged: 2018-06-01 02:41:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6497638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chinesebakery/pseuds/chinesebakery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fitz and Simmons become <em>literally</em> psychically linked thanks to the unfortunate effects of an 0-8-4.</p><p>Based on a prompt and ficlet from memorizingthedigitsofpi’s awesome March Madness Fic Tournament.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: FitzSimmons + because of an accident, they’re able to read each other’s mind. They’d really rather not.  
> Thanks (again) to agentcalliope for beta-reading. And YES it's another WIP -couldn't help myself. I need help, probably.

"Ugh, Fitz!" Jemma groaned, picking up the grubby backpack from her pristine table in the middle of the bus's lab.

"What?" he mumbled around a pen clenched between his teeth. He swivelled in his desk chair to see what she was talking about and wrinkled his nose at the sight.

"Ugh," he said, removing the pen so he could make a more disgusted face. Coming over to where she was standing, he grabbed the filthy pack from her and held it at arm’s length.

"Careful with that," May said, entering the room and looking freshly showered. "It’s an 0-8-4."

Fitz dropped the bag like it was on fire. It landed on the floor with a soft sound right between him and Jemma, with three pair of eyes surveying its grimy form as if it might spontaneously combust.

"Sorry," Fitz muttered, picking it up by the strap with his pen.

"See what you can find out about that thing, alright?" May asked with a pout of distaste. "It's now first priority."

 _Maybe if we weren't interrupted every goddamn second,_ or _if you could refrain from shuffling our priorities around like a drunk juggler, we'd have a chance to accomplish something for a change._

"Fitz!" Jemma gasped, throwing a nervous glance in May's direction. It was enough that she'd had to endure his crabby mood all morning without having to stand idly by while he got them into trouble.

"What?" Fitz asked, sounding positively petulant this time.

_Oh, right, of course. I keep forgetting you never met an authority figure you could agree with fast enough._

Jemma huffed an affronted sigh and clenched her fists, her acrimony only barely restrained. Meanwhile, May looked at one, then the other, before shaking her head with what might have been an eyeroll.

"Let me know when you have something," she said, and with a nod, she was out the door.

"Have you lost your mind?" Jemma half-whispered, half-shouted the moment they were alone. "Antagonizing people on purpose? Let me tell you, Fitz, you're doing a fine enough job at that when you're not even trying. Next time someone replaces your custard with mayo, you'd better not act indignant about it!"

"What the hell are you on about, now?" he asked, wrinkling his eyes with exasperation.

"May! What you–" she huffed, gesturing toward the door, then to herself. "You can't just–"

_Oh, by all means, Simmons, take your time spurring nonsense. It's not like we were just handed another impossible yet urgent task. And right before lunch, at that._

_Seriously! What the hell is_ wrong _with him today? And_ when _exactly did it become my job to micromanage his moods? I'm a_ biochemist, _for christ_ –

"Uh, Jemma?"

When Jemma lifted her eyes from the workspace she'd just started aggressively tidying, she found Fitz was standing very, very still, slack-jawed and horrified.

"Yes, Fitz?" she said, addressing him with the forced patience of a kindergarten teacher at the end of a _very_ long day.

_Mmh, can you, by any chance, hear this? Please say no. Or better yet, don't say anything._

"Of course I–" Jemma stopped mid-sentence when it struck her. His lips weren't moving. His eyes, on the other hand, were widening to an alarming degree.

 _You_ can _, right?_

 _"What_ –" Jemma found she didn't know how to finish that sentence.

_No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Nooo!_

_I'm afraid so._

_Stop! Stop doing that!_

Fitz was looking at her with the most intense puppy eyes she'd ever seen, as if silently begging her not to blame him for what was happening.

_Look, Jemma, I…_

She shook her head so vigorously it began to swim, effectively shutting him up.

Taking in her expression of utter helplessness, Fitz winced sympathetically and strode back to his desk, letting himself fall heavily on his seat. He spinned around one way, then the other, biding his time.

"So, on the plus side?" he said out loud with a slightly maniacal smile. "We know what that 0-8-4 does."

"Ohmygod," Jemma buried her head in her hands.

"Do you want me to call May?"

"No! Don't call anyone, don't– _think_ anything. I need to–"

_It's gonna be okay. We'll figure it out. I promise._

_How!?_

_The same way we figure out everything. Together. But for now… Are you hungry, by any chance?_

_GET OUT OF MY HEAD._

_***_

It was a nightmare. Had to be. Not any kind of nightmare either– it was right up there along with "finding out mid-conference your fly had been wide open the entire time" and "be forced to wear a Lycra suit that left nothing to the imagination in front of the entire team". The _worst_ kind.

As it turned out, Fitz had _many_ thoughts he'd rather keep to himself. As much as he would like Jemma to believe his brain was entirely consumed with science, many unsavory things passed through his mind on a daily basis, from the needlessly belligerent to the downright salacious.  

Now, she could hear _all of it_ in her head, loud and clear, with no filter or censor beep.

And at the most inconvenient time imaginable, too.

He'd known for a long time that Jemma was the most remarkable girl he'd ever known –and was likely to meet in his entire life– but watching her jump from the plane to a certain death had changed _everything_.

For many years, he'd been careful not to examine too closely the tangled mess of his feelings for her. She was his best friend (his gorgeous, sharp as a tack, completely out of his league best friend) and he knew better than to unleash on her an inclination she would without a doubt object to.

But after she took that fateful swan dive? It was as if a light had been switched on and he couldn't unsee the things he'd glimpsed when he thought he'd lost her. In fact, it was all he could think about around her.

Realistically, he'd been forced to acknowledge that 'best friend' didn't quite cut it. And while it may have been 'just a crush' in the beginning, crushes didn't usually persist for a decade, nor did they prevent one from pursuing other partners when it became conspicuous that nothing would happen with the object of said crush. No, it was… so much worse than that.

It had been difficult enough to go about his days without betraying all his stupid _feelings_ when she had no idea of what was going on in his head. How could he possibly manage that now?

Fitz took a deep breath and tried to clear his mind completely –not an easy feat when one's mind was as quick and large as his– before she came back from the lunch break she'd opted to take as far away from him as the confine of the place allowed.

He had to concentrate. This little hindrance had better be resolved before a real catastrophe occurred, like her finding out he didn't observe her unnecessarily industrious procedure for non-hazardous waste disposal as strictly as she assumed.

Or –perish the thought– what flashed through his mind before he fell asleep.

***

Jemma was deliberately wasting time, which was not typical behavior for her at all. She usually thought of herself as an efficient and productive individual, certainly not the kind of person who hid in the bathroom to prolong her lunch break. Truth be told, she felt utterly childish, postponing her return to the lab for as long as she possibly could without arousing suspicion. Poor Fitz had to be thinking she was intentionally avoiding him when, in fact, she was attempting to shield him from her own agitated mind.

It really was unfortunate that something like this would happen at a time when she felt so deeply unsettled in their relationship, which had been the only constant in her life for so long. She'd been doing her best to conceal her confusion, but how could she possibly achieve that when he could listen to her most private thoughts as if they were broadcasted on a radio show?

His willingness to risk everything for her –breaking quarantine, readily exposing himself to the virus, even preparing to jump after her– was especially troubling. _Just_ friends didn't jump off planes for each other. They didn't put their lives on the line as if it was the most normal thing to do.

She'd always known their friendship was quite extraordinary, but now… She wondered if maybe it wasn't more _special_ than she'd cared to acknowledge up to this point.

Jemma took a deep breath and tried to clear that unfortunate train of thoughts from her mind before it was too late.

For the moment, there was very little they knew about their _problem_ , other than the fact that the closer they were, the stronger their minds seemed linked. Immediate proximity was insufficient to form a bond –thankfully, neither of them could hear a peep from the inside of May's mind.

By now, it was more than time for her to get back to work –she was so late already– and resume their research. Their cursory observations hadn't taken them an inch closer to undoing the object's effect yet.

Jemma braced herself for an afternoon spent working side by side with Fitz, like every other afternoon of her adult life, except this time she had to monitor her every thought –there would be no noticing the striking blue of his eyes in the unforgivingly light of the lab today, and no musing to herself about the apparent firmness of his backside.

In just a few hours, they would need to answer to Coulson and May for their progress on the 0-8-4.


	2. Chapter 2

Why was it that the harder you tried to keep something out of your mind, the more sharply it demanded your undivided attention?

Jemma huffed with frustration as she stepped away from the microscope. In the next moment, she caught herself staring earnestly at Fitz's profile. Again. He'd combed his fingers through his hair in frustration so many times, his curls were now sticking out in every direction and–

_Everything okay?_

She straightened suddenly, feeling as if she'd been caught, and gave him a terse nod. While Fitz has taken to using what he'd dubbed "the fastest communication channel", she was still reluctant to do so.

All afternoon, she'd been wasting her energy wrestling her attention away from him as she desperately clung to the modicum of focus she had left. Although the current situation could hardly be deemed his fault, it was still very tempting to blame him for being so distracting, at the very least. She'd never felt so shamefully unproductive in her life.

_More filth. Nothing useful._

Jemma wondered idly if her inner voice sounded as disappointed and curt as her real one would have. Other than dirt and grime, none of the samples she'd studied had returned any valuable information whatsoever.

_It's okay. You'll find something._

_Please don't._

Couldn't he _feel_ her cringing? The last thing Jemma needed was some half-hearted encouragement delivered by his freaky direct line to her brain.

Fitz, on the other hand, seemed to be making fast progress, although he had yet to share his results with her. All Jemma could make out of his thoughts was a continuous flow of numbers, so fast and abundant she couldn't begin to pierce the reasoning behind them.

It was a little odd, working next to each other and not _together_ , but both of them had quickly agreed it might be best, given the circumstances. Perhaps not most efficient, but best anyway.

She'd never told him so in that many words, but she'd always admired not only his intelligence –that was a given– but the apparent effortlessness with which he used it. He certainly was a hard worker, when he deemed a subject worthy of his interest, but Jemma had always been the diligent one of the pair. Back at the Academy, she would be relentlessly triple-checking every result while he sat back and watched her work with a smirk on his face, deeming his first effort plainly satisfactory.

All afternoon, she'd been the one sneaking glances his way, only to find him resolutely absorbed in his work. He seemed so studious, in fact, that it made her feel even worse for her abysmal concentration level. It was very unlike him to go so long without demanding a single snack break –he had to be even more desperate than she to break the connection between them.

Jemma couldn't help but feel a little hurt by that. Surely it couldn't be _that_ terrible, sharing his thoughts with her? He was her best friend in the world, after all, and if she absolutely _had_ to relinquish all notion of privacy with one person, well, she was happy it was with him rather than… anyone else, really.

_It's not like that, Jem. I swear._

_How is it, then?_

When the stream of numbers started anew, Jemma let out a humorless chuckle.

For years, she'd smiled amiably when people said the two of them might have been sharing the same brain. Now that they did, they'd didn't have the first clue how to talk to each other anymore.

***

Fitz was at the very end of his rope. It was absolutely exhausting, trying to keep track of all the things he shouldn't be thinking about, not to mention the effort it took to redirect his attention in a flash whenever one of said forbidden topics threatened to force its way to his consciousness. Since he couldn't stop her from listening to his inner monologue, all he could do was garner his efforts on controlling the nature of the message.

Needless to say, he hadn't accomplish anything of interest nor discovered the first thing about that blasted 0-8-4.

As a matter of fact, he'd wasted the past few hours pretending to make various calculations when, in reality, he'd spent most of the afternoon staring into the empty in the general direction of his computer screen, going through every Celtic Glasgow statistics he could pull up from the far recess of his memory bank. After the '09 Premier League drew an absolute blank, he'd started computing what had to be the longest Fibonacci sequence generated by a human brain without the assistance of a machine. If he hadn't felt so forlorn about their circumstances, he would have been quite pleased with himself.

Meanwhile, Jemma seemed to be operating under the assumption he was hard at work and on his way to find a miracle cure. Even if he had been, the infinite loop of adverse  and confusing thoughts she was unwittingly sharing with him would have cut him dead in his tracks.

It would be diverting enough to be plugged into her usual perky self's stream of consciousness, but he had no idea how to deal with silently irked Jemma. Usually, when she was miffed with him, she had no problem at all letting him know what he'd done wrong.

Fitz was raking his brains in search of another time-kill when Jemma turned his way once more, flashing him a tense smile when their eyes met. She looked so uncertain and ill-at-ease, it made him want to grind his teeth.

It would be enough of a pain, forcibly baring his brain to anyone else on the team and offering himself as a target of ridicule and possibly pity, but nope, it had to be _her_.

_Bloody hell._

"Pardon me?" Jemma asked, as the tenuous grin on her lips quickly made way to an expression of offense.

"Mmh, nothing?" Fitz cleared his throat to cover his embarrassment.

Jemma kept her eyes trained on him, a frown creasing her forehead, as she asked, "Any progress?"

Her voice was overflowing with hopefulness. He hated to disappoint her, but there was no sense in prolonging the charade.

"Nope. I'm not going anywhere with this," he sighed, nodding toward the computer he'd been vaguely pretending to operate for hours.

_How come? You've been crunching numbers non-stop for hours!_

_Oh, sorry, I must have missed the memo on_ your _stellar advances?_

Jemma glared at him discontentedly.

_I think it's time we told the others._

"Must we, really?" she asked, her voice faint with preemptive mortification.

"We didn't do anything wrong, Jemma," he reminded her.

She didn't look so convinced.

***

"I mean," Skye started with an awkward look on her face. "You two have been pretty much psychic this whole time anyway?" she tried.

Fitz and Jemma exchanged an unamused look and then turned their heads simultaneously to look at her.

"It's not the same thing," Jemma said patronizingly at the same time that Fitz insisted, "That's totally different!"

"Yes, thank you," Coulson interrupted before their argument could start in earnest. "Now, Simmons, what are we talking about here?"

"Sir?" she asked, nose scrunching at her brow furrowed. Almost immediately, she shot a look over at Fitz and purposefully smoothed her features.

"I mean, can you two hear each other's thoughts? Can you hear mine? Skye's? Is it just a vague impression, or is it words? What level of telepathy are we dealing with here?"

Fitz snorted and tried to cover it up with his hand. "Sorry, sir," he said looking apologetic. "It's just… Simmons was just thinking about how it's not exactly ‘we' dealing with the situation, is it?"

"We can't hear your thoughts, only each other's," Jemma supplied placatingly. "Provided we're in the same room, or close enough from one another. The further we are, the faintest the link is."

"That could actually be useful in the field," May noted pensively.

"Can you do card tricks?" Skye wondered aloud, her eyes gleaming. Fitz snorted, while Jemma only looked irritated.

"This is _not_ a joke, Skye," Jemma crossed her arms defensively. "Actually–"

"What happens when you touch?" Skye asked with an air of complete innocence.

"Good question," Coulson acquiesced. "Would you say it strengthens your connection?"

Fitz and Jemma's eyes widened in unison as they stared at each other silently for a few seconds.

"That seems entirely–" Jemma gasped.

"–completely irrelevant–" Fitz blurted at the same time.

"Mmh, I see," Skye grinned. "Maybe you two should… experiment a little? You know, _for science_."

Coulson nodded decisively. "Simmons, you'll devise a series of test. I trust you to make it exhaustive."

_***_

Following their mortifying meeting with the team, Fitz and Jemma were back in the lab and working through Jemma's extensive laundry list of data to research. All of a sudden, Coulson seemed much more interested in testing the limit of their bound –and its possible applications in the field– as he was in overturning the effects of the 0-8-4.

"Okay, your turn," Jemma sighed, rolling her sore neck from side to side. She couldn't wait for the day to be over. "Think of a number, six digits or higher."

_14,930,352._

"14,930,352," Jemma said, ticking the box on her chart without waiting for his confirmation. So far, they'd passed all of their assigned tests with flying colors. When they actually _wanted_ the other in on their thoughts, their inner voice could be heard loud and clear.

Reading down the page, Jemma scrunched up her nose. "Wait, how are we even supposed to test for memory transference?"

Fitz looked at her intently, his piercing blue eyes boring into hers. Suddenly, Jemma could see his small hands resolutely tearing apart and reassembling a small appliance, oblivious to the sound of a horde of children playing and screaming happily outside. Soon, she felt a pleasant sense of resolve and pride.

"What were you fixing?" Jemma asked, beaming.

"My preschool teacher's radio," he shrugged. "Your turn."

Sticking to the theme, Jemma concentrated on the intense joy she'd felt while unpacking her first chemistry kit. It had taken much longer for her parents to give in and buy it –the box had said it was meant for children aged 10 and up– than it had for her to grow bored with it. But she would never forget the satisfaction she'd felt while looking at herself in the mirror, with the cheap plastic glasses twice too big for her little face, and her father's old white shirt with the sleeves rolled up hanging limply from her shoulders.

"Safety goggles always were a good look for you," Fitz teased, his eyes brimming with warmth.

Jemma chuckled and checked the next box.

"Okay, I think we're done," she stated in a tired voice. "Well, except for…"

"Yeah, that," he concurred embarrassedly.

It was ridiculous for her to feel so apprehensive, wasn't it? They'd touched each other thousands of times before. They'd held hands, hugged, kissed each other's cheeks. He'd held her hair back while she was sick and she'd cleaned green goo off his face after a failed experiment. It was nothing unusual, really.

Jemma held her palms up for him. Looking a little flushed, Fitz cleared his throat before grabbing her hands in his.

They were kissing. Not on the cheek, either. The were kissing, _really kissing_ with their mouths open and frantic, her arms wrapped around his shoulders, pulling him close, as his fingers tangled in her hair. His other hand was clasping the small of her back, pressing her hips tightly against him. Jemma felt her breath coming shorter and her heart pounding widely in her chest, but couldn't tell if the little gasps and moans were his or hers.

Fitz abruptly let go of her hands, breaking the spell and dissipating the vision as he did.

"I… Jemma, I can–" He looked utterly horror-struck.

That was something Fitz thought about, she realized. Had been thinking about for whoever knew how long. The two of them. Together.

Fitz gulped, then blinked several times as his skin kept coloring until it reached a shade of red Jemma hadn't thought humanly possible. His wide eyes remained glued to hers but he couldn't seem to think to close his mouth.  

_Sorry. I'm so sorry._


End file.
